Decorating is done...

We always spend the Friday after Thanksgiving decorating. Wait...correction. I always spend the day after Thanksgiving decorating.  Dan does help by carrying the tree upstairs, and we were able to accomplish that this year without too much difficulty. That's because our tree is dinky. It's tiny. Kate laughs at it. We bought a new one last year...a 6 foot tree. It makes me feel old. We bought it because we figured it would be easy to handle. It is. I really miss having a tree that nearly hits the ceiling. We're stuck with this one until some of the lights start going out, then I'll have to try to talk Dan back into a big one. Maybe by then Jake will be old enough to help his parents drag the thing in and out of the basement storage.

The tree went up, and then Kate entertained her brother for most of the day while I decorated the rest of the house. The poor guy was so excited to do ornaments and waited pretty patiently while I did everything else first. It helped when the bin of Christmas movies made an appearance. That gave him something to do.

Then he found a container of sports themed Easter eggs in the storage room. This was the next diversion.

Oh...I forgot to mention that we spent the entire day in our jammies. I have a picture of Kate in her jammies, but she would kill me if I posted it.

I kept the poor boy waiting long enough and eventually brought up the ornaments. This is something we always did on Friday evening while eating pizza and watching Christmas vacation, but we're flexible. I let him have at it.

Of course, he had to pop a little bubble wrap as we were unwrapping my breakable ornaments. I must remember to buy new bubble wrap in January before the tree comes down.

Here's the thing about a Christmas tree. It's for the kids. That has always been my attitude. I've always let my children decorate their tree the way that they want. So...when a certain kid of mine hangs ornaments 4 and 5 thick on a single branch...so what. It's his tree.

Sometimes that certain kid might even add other toys that aren't officially ornaments. Who says sports themed plastic Easter eggs aren't ornaments?

I did have to put my foot down when that certain little man decided to wear my expensive Christmas stockings.

Dinner on decorating night was pretty laid back, too. Jake showered and changed his clothes after the decorating and then became an eating machine at the dinner table. It went something like this...carrot sticks, strawberries, piece of pizza, ice cream, piece of pizza, cookie, piece of pizza, one more cookie. I'm not kidding. I finally cut him off.

I'm really excited about a new collection that I started this year...with the help of my mom and sister. I had the Santa mug that was my mug at my grandma's house when I was little. It even has my name and the date, December 25, 1973, written on the bottom by my Mama. I decided that this year I would start collecting these vintage Santa mugs. This is what I have so far...a great start.

My childhood mug is the one directly above the silver tree on the shelf below.

I've been promising to share some pictures from the preschool project. I'll have those ready on Tuesday. See you then!